Victoe francken and joseph pirxay



{SpeciinensJ v. FRANOKEN & J. PIRNAY.

TURF FIBER SURGICAL DRESSING.

No. 401,547. Patented Apr. 16, 1889.

N. PETERS. Photo-Lhhngmpher. Wa bing1om ac UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

VICTOR FRANCKEN AND JOSEPH PIRNAY, OF LIEGE, BELGIUM.

TU RF-FIBER SURGICAL DRESSING.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 401,547, dated April 16, 1889.

Application filed September 4, 1888. .Serial No. 284,550. (Specimens) To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that we, VICTOR FRA'NOKEN and JOSEPH PIRNAY, both subjects of the King of Belgium, residing at Liege, in the Kingdom of Belgium, have invented a certain new and useful Product of Peat or Turf, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to a product made from peat for-antiseptic and. other purposes.

For a long time the beneficial effects attending the use of peat as an antiseptic and disinfectant and for bandaging wounds, the most serious of which are usually healed by it with surprising quickness, have been well known. The use of peat would be much more general if the form in which it has heretofore been employed were less inconvenient. The only knownmode of using it for antiseptic and disinfecting purposes consists in putting peatdust in a more or less large linen satchel or bag. Now it will readily be understood that in this form the material cannot be applied to every part of the body, and that being by nature hard it will cause pain to the patient without possessing the absorbent qualities necessary for efficacious bandaging. It will also be understood that by reason of the peat being when so used in a dust form it will be limited in its use.

The principal object of the present invention is to obviate the above-stated inconveniences by the application to surgical bandages of peat in a soft, supple, and absorbent forn1-that is to say, in the form of extremely disinfecting peat wadding; and it further has for its object an article made from peat which maybe employed multifariously suoh as for bedding, furniture, stuffing, harness, and, in fact, in any connection wherein such fibrous article may be desired.

In the carrying out of our invention the treatment which peat must undergo in order to obtain a product of extreme suppleness consists in subjecting it, after desiccation, to a careful hackling action for the purpose of separating allthe hard and knotty parts. Then it must be beaten and afterward carded; but before it is conveyed to the carding apparatus a small quantity of cotton,hair,wool, or other substance, the slender and long filaments of which are designed to give more cohesion to the wadding to be manufactured, is preferably mixed with the material. These operations can be performed by means of any suitable machines, such as are used in the manufacture of wool or the like. After having passed through these operations the material receives the principal treatment, which consists in subjecting it to a slow boiling process effected in boiling water. This operation serves to render the fiber absorbent and extremely supple without depriving it of any of its antiseptic properties. The latter can be augmented or strengthened by adding to the peat waddin g other known antiseptics, preferably corrosive sublimate.

In lieu of boiling the material in water, it can be placed in a bath of overheated water steam, and the antiseptics, like the sublimate, may be added to the material by pulverization; but it is preferable to boil the material in water and steep it in the antiseptic. \Vhen, after these operations, the peat-wool thus prepared has been dried, it is finally subjected to a carding action, so as to obtain a Very uniform nap of wadding, which has the abovementioned properties for surgical bandages particularly. As a matter of course, by reason of its antiparasitic properties, this peat wadding or wool can advantageously (as above intimated) replace ordinary wool, cot-ton, hair, wreck, and the like employed in the manufacture of bedding and for stuffing of furniture, carriages, harnesses, and the like, if merely for hygienic purposes. In the latter applications a large quantity of foreign. niateria1s-such as wool, cotton, hair, &c.-can be mixed with the peat wadding or wool to increase the bulk. When the peat wadding is to serve for these purposes, the boiling water and the steeping in the antiseptics may be dispensed with, in which case the treatment by said apparatus is sufficient.

Having thus described our invention, what we claim as a new article of manufacture is-- The disintegrated fibrous product from peat herein described.

Brussels, this 27th day of July, 1888.

VICTOR FRANOKEN. JOSEPH PIRNAY.

\Vitnesses:

AUG. J OERISSEN, 0L. STEINER. 

